Lawrence accountant Janet Mears can see clearly now — thanks to the generosity of two organ donors.

Last year, after a hereditary condition left her vision severely impaired, Mears had both of her corneas replaced. But even though corneas are one of the most common organs to be donated, they are also among the least publicized.

There are about 40,000 cornea transplants in the United States every year. While a lot of attention goes toward kidney, heart and liver transplants, donors are more likely to pass along their corneas than they are any of those other organs combined.

The cornea is the clear tissue that covers the front of the eye and helps with focus; if light can no longer enter through it, the person’s vision becomes blurry.

“The cornea is like a clear windshield on the front of the eye, so if it’s cloudy you can’t see through it,” said Dr. Michael Mulhern, an ophthalmologist at Lawrence Eye Care Associates.

Leading causes for cornea transplants include Fuchs’ dystrophy, a disorder that causes the cornea to swell over time and can lead to blurred vision; keratoconus, a degenerative condition in which the cornea thins and becomes misshapen; and scarring from cataract surgery or other injuries.

“It’s usually very successful in clearing things up,” Mulhern said of transplant surgery. “The cornea is interesting because the eye is in kind of an immune-protected location, so there’s not as much rejection as there is in other kinds of organ transplants.”

He added that the recovery time is generally weeks to months, with vision continuing to improve over time.

Mears, 52, first started noticing vision problems after she underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer in 2008. She used glasses to correct her vision until they no longer helped. Last year, the blurriness got so bad surgery became a necessity.

The procedures were performed by Dr. Timothy Cavanaugh of Overland Park, one of the regions’ leading providers of cornea transplants. He used a newer surgery that replaces only the diseased layers of the cornea rather than the whole thing. This allows for a faster recovery time and doesn’t require stitches. After each transplant, Mears had to lay flat on her back for two days while the replacement layers adhered to the rest of her cornea.

Mears handled the first surgery well. A few months after her second transplant, however, her body started to reject the new cornea. She knew something was wrong when she woke up one day and it looked like there was gauze covering her eye. She had to get an anti-rejection shot and go back to using the more powerful eye drops she needed after surgery. She has to put two drops in that eye every day for the rest of her life (as well as one in the other).

Almost a year after her last transplant, Mears said her distance vision is good but that her near vision is actually worse than before the surgery. So she uses triple-strength reading glasses when she’s on the computer at work.

If anything, the two procedures have reinforced for Mears the importance of organ donation. Not only did her late father have a cornea transplant but her brother once had to get a new heart.

“Out of my immediate family, three of six family members have needed some sort of organ transplant,” she said. “It’s something that has a lot of meaning to me now, and I try to encourage it as much as possible.”